On any given night in 2023, approximately 653,100 people were experiencing homelessness, nearly 257,000 of whom were sleeping in an unsheltered location, meaning on the street, in a car or other vehicle, or in an abandoned building. From 2015 to 2023, a 48 percent increase in unsheltered homelessness drove an overall increase in homelessness in the US, reversing an eight-year trend that saw decreases in the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single day between 2009 and 2017.

Despite this, homelessness is solvable. Reducing homelessness is a math equation: help people exit homelessness faster than they are entering. Increases and decreases in the number of people experiencing homelessness on any given day are driven by imbalances in the number of people entering homelessness and those exiting.

Key Takeaways

The single most effective way to end homelessness nationwide would be to fund a comprehensive affordable housing plan that would include a universal voucher program. This would both help more people exit homelessness and prevent more people from entering into homelessness.

We outline a number of strategies that could be undertaken by Congress or the Biden administration that would contribute to decreasing the number of people experiencing homelessness and/or improve conditions for people experiencing homelessness. These strategies include the following:

• Help more people exit homelessness by expanding existing voucher programs and helping people access the private rental market.
• Prevent more people from becoming homeless through targeted voucher expansions and using mainstream assistance programs to screen for and help people experiencing housing instability.
• Protect people enduring unsheltered homelessness by incentivizing communities to eliminate criminalization efforts and fund alternative response programs.
• Increase access to and improve the performance of mainstream service systems for people experiencing homelessness to improve access to Medicaid and increase the support from Social Security Income.
• Prevent evictions by supporting tenants in their homes and providing legal and policy protections.